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New class - Jardin de Fleurs

Hi, my name is Sue and I live with my partner in a village in Derbyshire. I love all kinds of mixed media crafting and am never happier than when I'm elbow deep in paint ! I hope you enjoy your visit !

Friday, 3 July 2015

I've finally found time to share some photos from my 'Test your Metal' class that took place on the 20th June. We had a fabulous day but the one thing that I didn't do was take any photos ! So thank you to Ruth and Sharon for sending me theirs.

It was heads down right from the start !

Ruth and Kerry are busy bees !

This canvas is Kerry's, you can't see the beautiful flower that well but the colours Kerry chose are gorgeous !

Sharon was determined to include the feather on her project, and succeeded !

June decided to go with a different layout and it looks fantastic !

My next class is called 'Jardin de Fleurs' and will be taking place on Saturday 25th July, all the details can be found here. Below is a sneak peek of the canvas we'll be creating! Would be lovely to see you there !

Thursday, 2 July 2015

At long last Summer has arrived in the UK ! The temperatures have risen which means the central heating has, at last, been turned off !

Today is also the first day of the new Stamps and Stencils challenge. The lovely Tony is our host and has chose It's Summer Time as the theme, here's what Toni has to say:

It's that time of year where you may be thinking about dusting off your
passport and digging out your swimsuit! Yes it's holiday time ! Whether
you're a lover of the seaside or someone who enjoys a city break, we
would love to see your holiday inspired projects. This could be
journalling, altered art, or even a good old card.

After staring into space wondering what on earth to do, my eyes lighted upon the holiday folder that I use for all our travel documents when we go on holiday, and an idea sprung to mind !

This is what the folder looked like before I started, it's got a kind of canvas finish so perfect for painting with Fresco Finish paints !

I gave it 2 coats of Gesso to kill the dark blue colour, not being too fussy about the edges.

I then started to stencil using Jade from the JOFY limited edition set of Frescos. I love the JOFY vine stencil and I added some flowers using the Lin Brown stencil.

I then did a wash of watererd down Hint of Mint from one of the Lin Brown Limited Edition Fresco Finish sets.

I carried on stencilling, using HInt of Mint and mixing in a little Jade too. Doing a wash after each layer to build up depth.

The TCW numbers stencil is just fantastic for the 'bumping' technique and this time I used Snowflake Fresco Finish for the shadow and Jade as the top colour. Some more stencilling using a Dina Wakley stencil and another Lin Brown stencil.

It was at this point that I suddenly thought what on earth am I going to put on the front ! I really enjoyed the Inspirational Post that Ruth did here and wanted to include the baby wipe technique somewhere.Then I got to thinking about the holidays that we've enjoyed over the years in France and that's when I went in search of my Serenditpity and Katzelkraft stamps.

The French window is a Serendipity stamp and really does remind me of the houses in the Provence area of France. I've water coloured it to give the shutters a slight hint of blue and rubbed Distress Ink around the edge of the card. The words Voyage and France are stamped onto used baby wipes that have been glued to white card, using Katzelkraft stamps.

The hessian tag is one I picked up from a cheap craft store in town and I've painted it with Chalk Fresco Finish then stamped it with a Darkroom Door stamp. The little postage stamp is die cut using the Tim Holtz die and is stamped using a Darkroom Door stamp. The Fleur de Lys is die cut from a piece of used baby wipe that has been stuck on to some whitre card. What you can't see all that well is the Whipped Spackle that I coloured using Jade Fresco Finish and spread over the Tim Holtz Flourish stencil. When it was dry I replaced the stencil and brushed White Fire Treasure Gold over it.

I kept the back cover quite simple and you can see the Whipped Spackle (I love this name!) a little more clearly.

The garlic stamp is another Serendipity stamp and I've lightly watercoloured it using watered down Fresco Finish paints.

So from having no idea I actually quite like this project and it will be going with us when we travel to France later this year !

I hope you get chance to join us for this challenge and do make sure you hop over to the Stamps and Stencils blog to check out the rest of the DT's fabulous projects.